16 The EconomistAugust 10th 2019
1F
or thepast nine weeks and counting
huge anti-government protests have
rocked Hong Kong, with no obvious end in
sight. On August 5th pro-democracy prot-
esters organised the first general strike in
the territory for half a century. It shut down
parts of the transport system. Banks, adver-
tising companies and many other busi-
nesses also closed, or urged their employ-
ees to work from home.
The absolute number of protesters on
the streets has fallen—from an estimated
2m who marched, largely peacefully, on
June 16th, to 350,000 strikers. But the fluid
tactics of the black-clad vanguard, which is
increasingly using violence, has chal-
lenged the resources of a police force deter-
mined to crack down on the protests. As the
methods of the protesters have changed, so
too has their target: what began as opposi-
tion to a bill that would have allowed sus-
pects in Hong Kong to be extradited to
mainland China has become a popular re-
volt against the local government—and,
for at least some on the streets, against Chi-nese rule itself.
How China and the international com-
munity, particularly America, react to the
continuing crisis will shape the future of
Asia’s pre-eminent financial centre. Al-
ready it is clear that, were somehow the
protests to be quelled peacefully, Hong
Kong cannot simply revert to its imagined
old form. Gone, possibly for ever, is the no-
tion, rooted in colonial days but slavishly
repeated by China after the territory’s
handover from the British in 1997, that
Hong Kong can endeavour to be an “eco-
nomic” city in which politics plays a minor
role, and only then among an enlightened,
disinterested elite. Politics has, now, firmly
taken hold.The battle outside raging
Chinese officials and Communist Party
media divine Western “black hands” be-
hind the protests. The rhetoric from the
mainland has escalated markedly since
July 21st, when protesters defaced the na-
tional insignia of the central liaison office,the central government’s representative in
the territory. At the end of July Major Gen-
eral Chen Daoxiang, commander of the
usually invisible Hong Kong garrison of the
People’s Liberation Army (pla) called the
unrest “absolutely impermissible”, send-
ing the message that the plawould not
hesitate to step in to restore order if Xi Jinp-
ing, China’s ruler, demanded it. In an un-
subtle message, the garrison released a vid-
eo showing Chinese forces using
machine-guns to suppress mock riots.
This has led to anxious speculation in
Hong Kong and around the world that Chi-
nese security forces might be preparing to
intervene in a territory to which, in its for-
mula of “one country, two systems” it had
promised “a high degree of autonomy”. On
August 5th, at a press conference after two
weeks hidden from public view, a rattled
Mrs Lam spoke of Asia’s financial hub be-
ing on the “verge of a very dangerous situa-
tion”. A day later, at an even rarer press con-
ference, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong
and Macau affairs office in Beijing empha-
sised the mainland’s faith in Mrs Lam, but
also warned that Hong Kong’s “shocking”
protests had gone beyond legitimate free
assembly and were pushing the territory
into a “dangerous abyss”.
China is no longer as directly depen-
dent on Hong Kong for its economic wel-
fare as it once was, when foreign firms op-
erating from the territory, managerial
expertise and access to international mar-Seeing red
HONG KONG
Asia’s pre-eminent financial centre is on the brinkBriefing Turmoil in Hong Kong